Sri Lanka’s ethno-religious tensions are disproportionately affecting women. Post-war nationalist policies led to a spike in anti-Muslim and anti-minority sentiment over the years. The brunt of these policies and growing anti-Muslim hatred have been faced by Muslim women.
From structural barriers such as gender-discriminatory personal laws to endangerment due to their visibility, Muslim women in Sri Lanka find themselves in a precarious position. Proponents of Islamophobia have disseminated false propaganda about Muslim women’s dress codes and have also exploited their struggle for law reforms.
The 2019 Easter Sunday attacks saw emergency law regulations come into effect after radical ISIS-inspired terrorists conducted suicide bomb attacks against churches and hotels in Sri Lanka. In a misguided retaliation, the new regulations forced Muslim women to remove their niqabs or burqas (face veils) due to ‘national security concerns.’ This ban came into effect without the consultation of Muslim women community leaders or political leaders.
Despite following the orders of the ban, Muslim women were routinely harassed. Today marks five years since the ban was lifted, yet notices prohibiting the face veil still persist in banks, bus stations, and other public spaces. There have been repeated attempts by parliamentarians to reintroduce the ban. Former Public Security Minister Sarath Weerasekera once mentioned he had signed a cabinet paper to ban the face veil, citing it as a ‘national security’ concern and a sign of ‘religious extremism.’
The war on women’s bodies
The discrimination didn’t stop after the face veil ban was lifted. In 2019, a circular preventing women in public service from wearing the hijab, niqab, and abaya came into effect. The circular was later canceled after efforts from Muslim women’s rights activists and the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka. However, Muslim women in the public sector were routinely harassed for wearing their abaya, including an incident involving the assault of a Muslim teacher. Earlier this year, seventy Muslim girls in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, were denied their Advanced Level examination results because the invigilators claimed their identities could not be verified because of their hijabs. For Muslim women who were already denied visibility, these provisions effectively silence them from actively participating in society.
This constant disagreement over what a Muslim woman should and should not wear does not just originate from politicians and other racist elements of society — it also comes from within the Muslim community itself.
The President of the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulema (ACJU), M.I.M Rizwe once stated that the face cover was wajib, or compulsory. In 2019, the ACJU advised women to avoid donning face veils even after the temporary ban on face veils was lifted. In 2014, the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka held a campaign to distribute colored abayas, which they believed would reduce the negative perception that black abayas held. In 2023, Akurana Mosque officials advised Muslim women to avoid wearing abayas or face veils and also advised them not to visit the mosque during the sacred month of Ramadan due to a potential security threat.
Such instances highlight the little agency Muslim women have in making their own decisions with regard to their attire and ability to practice Islam. Muslim women are caught between discrimination and the ever-pressing desire to avoid Islamophobia. The ability to visibly and safely practice their faith is continuously curtailed due to fear of violence.
Discriminated by policy
Eight days before Sri Lanka’s 2024 general elections, Minister Vijitha Herath, a then-member of the interim cabinet appointed by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, announced that the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA) would remain unchanged. He added that amendments would only follow consultations with religious leaders. The MMDA has several gender-discriminatory provisions, including facilitating child marriage, denying women the right to sign their own marriage documents, allowing unjust divorce procedures for women, and denying Muslim women the right to hold judicial office in the administration of marriage and divorce procedures.
Minister Herath’s statement suggested the current government had decided not to pursue reforms given the historical reluctance of religious leadership to support them. The statement came after a 2019 video on the government party’s official channel resurfaced, titled “Say No to Child Marriage and Polygamy!”. It featured Saroja Paulraj, a Minister for Women’s Affairs (then a member contesting at the general elections), calling for a uniform marriage age and criticizing child marriages under the MMDA. Politically motivated circulation of the video prompted Paulraj to apologize, while Minister Herath’s remarks attempted to shut down further debate. Herath sent a clear message: the ruling National People’s Power (NPP) government would not challenge entrenched gender inequalities, especially if doing so risked alienating powerful community leaders.
Herath framed this inaction as a form of respect for minority autonomy, but it reinforced patriarchal interpretations of Islam and side-lined the voices of Muslim women who have been advocating for reform for over 50 years. By prioritizing male religious leaders’ perspectives, the government marginalized Muslim women further.
The government’s deaf ear to Muslim women’s demands for reforms was nothing new. In 2021, then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa established a ‘One Country-One Law’ presidential task force to harmonize the various personal laws in Sri Lanka, including the Muslim, Kandyan, and Tesawalamai laws. This was one of the promises of his election campaign. Like the wider Rajapaksa election campaign, catered to the Sinhala-Buddhist majority in the country, he aimed to establish a legal hegemony that would protect the majoritarian nature of the government.
This 13-member task force was headed by right-wing Buddhist monk Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, who is known for fuelling racism and instigating anti-Muslim violence in the South of Sri Lanka. The establishment of this task force showed complete disregard for nearly half a century of work done by Muslim women’s groups to reform the MMDA, and attempted to force a blanket law over every citizen, regardless of their personal faith or values.
There have been long-standing calls by Muslim groups and individuals for the reform of the MMDA, with multiple commissions specifically for Muslim personal law reform being established. However, there has been little-to-no legislative progress. The call has distinctively been made to reform—not repeal—the MMDA. This emphasizes the importance of diverse family laws representing the multi-ethnic society in Sri Lanka. The call for a universal law that governs everyone has been a unilateral one, arising from racist factions eager to establish an ethnicized power hegemony.
Calls for reformation crucially began almost immediately after the inception of the MMDA and gained heavy momentum in the 1980s. These efforts, largely spearheaded by Muslim women-led groups, have been demonized and dismissed multiple times over the past few decades, taking away any form of their agency and denying their voices.
Threatened, harassed and ostracized
Activists and civil society organizations that work at the grassroots level often have to strike a delicate balance. They work to provide support to victims and advocate for the rights of Muslim women while also ensuring that their work is not being exploited to further Islamophobic sentiments.
Adding to the challenges, activists also face harassment from the Muslim community for their work. Threats are often personal, questioning activists’ personal lives, virtue, and faith while often categorizing them as ‘puppets of the West.’ Social media has recently been used extensively to harass activists. Bisliya Bhutto, a women’s rights activist in Sri Lanka, had her personal photos circulated around Facebook with suggestive commentary and crude emojis to portray her as a promiscuous woman.
The posts questioned her character and integrity. Prominent human rights defenders such as Juwairiya Mohideen, founder of the Muslim Women’s Development Trust, faced threats and harassment that even extended to her husband. Her work advocates for Muslim personal law reforms and supporting victims of injustice at the hands of the gender-discriminatory provisions of the law.
Civil society organizations such as our own- Sisterhood Initiative have not escaped unscathed either; our morals and work are constantly questioned. However, in the current conditions wherein policymakers continue to deny Muslim women’s rights and ignore decades of advocacy, the work of activists and civil society organizations is more important than ever.
Anti-terror laws and their impact
Women continue to lead the demand for justice and accountability, particularly as anti-terror laws are weaponized against ethnic minorities. While men and boys are more typically detained under these laws, women face the brunt of the struggle. They are forced to figure out the whereabouts of lost family members and juggle new responsibilities after becoming the main breadwinner of the family in the wake of the man’s absence. In some instances, women are also detained simply for having familial or marital links to those arrested.
Following the Easter Sunday attacks, many Muslim men and boys, especially in the terrorist mastermind’s hometown of Kattankudy, were detained under dubious claims of their links to the suicide bombers. Women whose family members are detained reported that they had frequent visits from male intelligence officers. The visits have been regarded suspiciously by neighbors, and these women are further ostracized and socially isolated from the community. Younger women have also reported experiencing sexual harassment over the phone by investigating officers or those in charge of cases involving their male family members.
Exploited by Islamophobic elements of the society, ignored by policymakers, and shunned by the Muslim community-—gendered Islamophobia takes on many forms, highlighting the underlying misogynistic and toxic patriarchal elements of Sri Lanka’s patriarchal society.
There is a need for inclusive and gender-sensitive approaches in order to protect and promote the rights and freedom of Muslim women. This work has to be championed by both the government and the Muslim community because inaction by one would enable further discrimination and the violation of the rights of Muslim women in Sri Lanka.
(Sisterhood Initiative members Muqaddasa Abdul Wahid, Fawzul Himaya Hareed, Isuri Kumbukage, and Amani Raji co-authored this piece.)